Suburban report.

Village Secures Site For Sewage Plant

December 26, 1998|By Donna Santi.

RICHMOND — Richmond's new sewage treatment plant is a step closer to reality, now that the village owns the land it has designated for the facility.

The Village Board has accepted the deed to 6.3 acres southeast of U.S. Highway 12 and Illinois Highway 31. The parcel was donated as part of a 150-acre annexation agreement with landowners Alex Orsolini and Bill Smith.

Richmond is under pressure to build a new treatment plant because the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has determined that its current facility is substandard under new guidelines. The 20-year-old plant, southeast of U.S. 12 and Illinois Highway 173, exceeds allowable levels of ammonia nitrogen, a pollutant in plant effluent.

Richmond was granted a grace period for compliance but must improve the quality of its discharged water by October 2000.

Last month the board zoned the newly acquired property industrial with a variance allowing a sewage treatment plant. Village President Kevin Brusek said the board's next step will be to apply to the EPA for approval and construction permits. That process should take place by the end of January, he said.

Construction of the plant carries a price tag near $3 million, Brusek said. Federal and state grants or low-interest loans may offset the costs.

The plant would process about 500,000 gallons of waste water a day. Effluent would be deposited into Nippersink Creek.

The McHenry County Defenders, a non-profit environmental watchdog agency, has urged the board to research alternative forms of waste water treatment.